WASHINGTON, DC—October 22, 2008— A recent survey by the Jump$tart Coalition®
for Personal Financial Literacy demonstrated that less than half of the high
school seniors surveyed realize the three nationwide consumer credit reporting
companies are required to provide consumers with a free copy of their credit
report each year. Public awareness efforts such as National “Protect Your
Identity” Week could play an important role in educating consumers of all ages.

In the
survey, funded by the Merrill Lynch Foundation, only 47.7 percent of the high
school students knew they could check their credit report for free once a year.
College students did better—nearly three quarters of them knew about the free
credit report—but overall, the research seems to indicate a lack of knowledge
in this area. The
survey has been conducted since 1997 on Jump$tart’s behalf by Lewis Mandell,
Ph.D., Kermit O. Hanson Visiting Professor of Finance and Business Economics at
the University of Washington and Senior Fellow at the Aspen Institute, and his
analysis of this year’s survey will be published in a book, early in 2009.

The Merrill Lynch
Foundation also funded the previous Jump$tart surveys in 2004 and 2006 and an
online college survey in 2008.

“Identity theft is one
of the fastest growing crimes in America,” noted Dr. Mandell. “We must do
everything we can to educate our nation’s young people about their rights and
responsibilities in protecting their good names. Many times students don’t even
know they have a credit report. If, however, they even have a cell phone
in their names, they probably have their own credit record.”

“Only one Web site is authorized to fill orders
for the free annual credit report you are entitled to under law— www.annualcreditreport.com,”
noted Laura Levine, executive director of the Jump$tart Coalition. “Other Web sites
often claim to offer ‘free credit reports,’ ‘free credit scores’ or ‘free
credit monitoring.’ They are not, however, part of the legally mandated free
annual credit report program.”

Some “imposter” sites use terms like “free report”
in their names; others have URLs that purposely misspell annualcreditreport.com
in the hope that you will mistype the name of the official site. Some of these
“imposter” sites direct you to other sites that try to sell you something or
collect your personal information. For more information, about identity theft
and other issues, check the Jump$tart Coalition Clearinghouse at (http://www.jumpstart.org/search.cfm)
and many of its partners’ sites.

About
Jump$tart

The Jump$tart Coalition®
has grown to include more than 180 national partners
and 48 affiliated state coalitions. The Jump$tart Clearinghouse, which lists
more than 700 titles of financial literacy materials available for all, can be
found at www.jumpstartclearinghouse.org. A map of state-by-state financial
education requirements can be found at www.jumpstart.org
under “Legislation.” More information about Jump$tart and its biennial survey
can be found at www.jumpstart.org,
including a media press kit in the “News” section.